Creation Myth
In the Japanese creation myth, the first deities which came into existence, appearing at the time of the creation of the universe, are collectively called Kotoamatsukami.
Later, the seven generations of kami, known as Kamiyonanayo ("Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods"), emerged, following the formation of heaven and earth.
The first two generations are individual deities called hitorigami, while the five that followed came into being as male/female pairs of kami: brothers and sisters that were also married couples. In this chronicle, the Kamiyonanayo comprise 12 deities in total.
In contrast, the Nihon Shoki states that the Kamiyonanayo group was the first to appear after the creation of the universe, as opposed to the Kamiyonanayo appearing after the formation of heaven and earth. It also states that the first three generations of deities are hitorigami (individual deities) and that the later generations of deities are pairs of the opposite gender, as compared to the Kojiki's two generations of hitorigami.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Mythology
Famous quotes containing the words creation and/or myth:
“There’s something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“That, of course, was the thing about the fifties with all their patina of familial bliss: A lot of the memories were not happy, not mine, not my friends’. That’s probably why the myth so endures, because of the dissonance in our lives between what actually went on at home and what went on up there on those TV screens where we were allegedly seeing ourselves reflected back.”
—Anne Taylor Fleming (20th century)